Rocket Lineup

Laurent Dauphin – Lukas Vejdemo – Jesse Ylonen

Danick Martel – Jean-Sebastien Dea – Alex Belzile

Rafael Harvey-Pinard – Brendan Gignac – Gabriel Bourque

Brandon Baddock – Cam Hillis – Kevin Roy

Xavier Ouellet – Louie Belpedio

Tobie Paquette-Bisson – Tory Dello

Corey Schueneman – Terrance Amorosa

Michael McNiven – Cayden Primeau

Alexandre Fortin, Carl Neill

Joel Teasdale (surgery), Josh Brook (surgery), Jean-Christophe Beaudin (DTD), Gianni Fairbrother (DTD)

Game Report

Game Report written by Amy Johnson

Laval dropped their second consecutive game to the Belleville Senators on Friday night, when their division rivals defeated them 6-2 at Place Bell. The loss dropped the Rocket down to sixth in the division.

On Saturday night, the Quebec team traveled to Belleville to complete the home-and-home series, the fourth matchup against the Sens this month.

After coming into the game to relieve Cayden Primeau on Friday night, it was Michael McNiven‘s turn to take the crease in this tilt. Jean-Francois Houle also shuffled his forward lines around quite a bit, promoting Lukas Vejdemo to the top line and moving Cam Hillis to center on the fourth line.

First Period

The road to redemption got off to a bumpy start when Andrew Agozzino scored just over a minute into the game. The Belleville forward drove the net hard and deflected Pontus Aberg‘s shot.

Soon after, the Rocket found themselves shorthanded for four minutes as Danick Martel was whistled for high-sticking. Fortunately Laval was able to kill it off and maintain just a one-goal deficit.

Second Period

Agozzino earned himself a slashing penalty at the end of the first period, giving Laval a full two-minute power play to begin the second. While they didn’t score on the man advantage, they did manage to light the lamp a few minutes later when the Senators coughed up the puck in the neutral zone and Kevin Roy patiently waited for Kevin Mandolese to give him an opening to score.

Less than two minutes later, however, Belleville regained the lead when Jake Lucchini fired the puck deep from the neutral zone and Agozzino took it off the end boards, neatly sliding it past McNiven.

The Senators extended their lead late in the period when Egor Sokolov skated the puck through three Laval skaters and wristed it cleanly into the Rocket’s net. Not long after that, Alex Belzile and Mark Kastelic dropped the gloves as frustrations started to boil over for the visiting team.

Third Period

Penalties, penalties, penalties. The Rocket just can’t seem to stop racking up infractions and giving out opportunities to their opponents.

For the fourth time in 24 hours, Laval found themselves on the wrong end of a five-on-three advantage, and while they managed to get out of being down two men unscathed, the same couldn’t be said for the remaining power play.  Lucchini found the back of the net for his ninth goal of the season with a snipe from the top of the slot.

Laurent Dauphin tallied his 10th goal of the season with just about nine minutes left in the game when he tapped in a pass on the back door from Tobie Paquette-Bisson. It brought the Rocket within two goals of the Senators, and then it seemed like perhaps they might catch a break as Belleville took not one, but two penalties.

But Laval couldn’t get a good shot off the faceoff and instead turned the puck over in their own end. Maxence Guenette got up ice on a breakaway and had nothing but an empty net to shoot for a shorthanded goal.

With less than two minutes in the game, Brandon Baddock tried to provide a spark as he rifled the puck past Mandolese from the far circle to pull the Rocket back to within two goals. But the empty net for Laval was its own worst enemy as Agozinno completed his hat trick and, 12 seconds later, Scott Sabourin also potted a goal.

What’s Next?

Plus / Minus

▲ Kevin Roy, Jean-Sebastien Dea

▼ Louie Belpedio, Alex Belzile